1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head capable of ejecting liquid, a method for making the same, and a liquid ejecting apparatus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an ink jet recording head capable of discharging a liquid ink, a method for making the same, and an ink jet recording apparatus.
2. Related Art
In an ink jet recording head, which is one example of a commonly used liquid ejecting head, ink is typically supplied from an ink cartridge which acts as a liquid storage unit, through a series of ink supply needles which are detachably inserted into the ink cartridge, through a series ink flow paths formed in a supply member such as a cartridge case which holds the ink cartridge, and finally into a head main body. Then, by driving pressure generating units such as piezoelectric elements provided in the head main body, the ink supplied to the head main body is discharged from nozzles.
In such an ink jet recording head, if air bubbles in the ink in the ink cartridge are supplied to a head main body, or if air bubbles are introduced to the ink when an ink cartridge is attached or detached and are consequently supplied to a head main body, the air bubbles may cause defects in the discharging process, and create printing errors, such as missing dots. To solve this problem, one or more filters for removing air bubbles and dust in ink are provided between ink supply needles inserted into an ink cartridge and the supply member. One example of an ink jet recording head with this configuration is shown in Japanese Patent No. JP-A-2000-211130.
The filter may be fixed to the supply member, for example, by thermal welding. The ink supply needles may be fixed to the supply member, for example, by ultrasonic welding.
However, in a configuration such as that described in Japanese Patent No. JP-A-2000-211130, the filters are provided in the area of the supply member where the supply needles are fixed. Therefore, it is necessary to provide sufficient area so that separately welding processes may be formed for both the ink supply needles and the filters. Therefore, the distance between adjacent ink supply needles cannot be reduced, meaning that the size of the recording head cannot be reduced.
In addition, in a configuration such as that described in Japanese Patent No. JP-A-2000-211130, if the size of the filters is excessively reduced in order to reduce the size of the recording head, the dynamic pressure increases, meaning that the amount of drive voltage generated by the driving pressure generating units such as piezoelectric elements or heater elements needs to be increased.
Such problems exist not only in ink jet recording heads but also in liquid ejecting heads that eject a liquid other than ink.